


Where No One Has Gone Before (Alternate ending)

by lori (zakhad), zakhad



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 21:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12779904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: What if the Traveller vanished/died and left them stranded on the other end of the universe?





	Where No One Has Gone Before (Alternate ending)

"He's gone, sir."

Dr. Crusher's voice carried despair over the comm system; Picard stared at the array of colors on the main viewer and felt helpless. He even thought about Q, in a few moments of desperation. But he shook himself and focused on the task at hand.

"Gone," echoed Riker.

"Phased out of our plane of existence. Vanished. No longer aboard the ship in any meaningful way that we can interact with him, anyway. I'm sorry, there was nothing I could do."

"Thank you, Doctor." Picard tapped the console on his right arm rest and cut the channel. He sighed heavily, contemplated his options. "Staff meeting."

In the observation lounge, it was a somber group gathered around the table, once the senior staff assembled. Wesley was markedly absent. Picard didn't bother to comment on it. The boy had clearly been fond of the Traveler. After an awkward silent pause, the door opened once more and Kosinski came in with a thousand-yard stare -- hollow eyed and hopeless. He hesitated for a moment, then took the last few steps to the empty chair at the far end of the room from Picard.

Deanna Troi looked devastated. Likely a reflection of the emotional atmosphere all around her -- everyone who had heard about the Traveler understood what it meant.

"Let's talk about how we're getting home," Picard said.

Kosinski's single bark of disdainful laughter got him some irritated glances. "Your pessimism doesn't help," Riker said coolly.

"Realism," Kosinski fairly howled. "You know we're stuck here. There's no way back! Not in a thousand years at top warp!"

"Mr. Data, suggestions," Riker said, swiveling his head to regard the android hopefully. 

"I have taken the liberty of reviewing potential options -- there is one manner of travel that might take us back to our home universe," Data said calmly. He alone was placid, unconcerned, looking quite calm.

"Manner of travel? Specify," Picard snapped, a little irritated by the pause.

"There was an engine called the spore drive, pioneered by the USS _Discovery_  during the Klingon-Federation war. The drive was never replicated and put into common usage, due to the complexity and to the sometimes chaotic results of using the drive."

"I've never heard of this," Picard exclaimed. "Argyle?"

The engineer wasn't looking happy. "I've never seen the specs. It's classified. But I agree with whoever banned it from being used -- the thing's immoral."

"Do we even have the specs, then?" Riker asked.

"Yes, however, as Mr. Argyle said, they are classified. I believe the captain would be able to access them."

Picard sighed, looking around at the hope in people's faces. "Let's give it a look."

 

* * *

 

 

"Damn it all to hell," Picard spat. 

The schematic clearly showed a living being at the heart of the drive. 

"And it's not just any living creature," Argyle said. "The organism has to have an innate connection to the mycelial network that pervades one of the levels of subspace. They were using a tardigrade -- that organism is able to incorporate DNA into its own, in essence it borrows DNA from the mycelium and then it's able to use the network to travel through that layer of subspace more or less instantaneously."

Picard stared at the holographic projection over the table, just as everyone else did, and felt what little hope he had fade away. But he went on with the exercise in futility. "Do we have any organism at our disposal suitable for this task?"

Argyle shook his head and shrugged. Data said, "Computer, analyze, is there currently any organism aboard the _Enterprise_  similar to the tardigrade, that would be able to detect or utilize the mycelial network in subspace?"

"Affirmative," the computer unexpectedly intoned in its usual placid manner.

"What?" Geordi blurted. He held his tongue, shooting a guilty glance at the captain.

"I think I know what it means," Crusher said, sadly. "Computer, specify."

"Betazoids are able to communicate using the mycelial network," the computer said.

All eyes went to Deanna, sitting quietly with wide eyes. She shook her head slowly. "I had no idea," she murmured. "I just know I can sometimes contact my mother even when we are far from her."

"Have you been able to since we were thrown into this place?" Riker asked. 

Deanna's eyes seemed to go out of focus for a moment. Then she looked up at them, shocked all over again. "Yes," she murmured. 

"What does this drive do to the organism while it's in operation?" Riker asked, quite urgently. 

Argyle shook his head. "We have to find some other way," he exclaimed. "The more the drive is used, the more degradation to the organism -- it almost killed the tardigrade. And then they grafted some of the tardigrade's DNA into their engineer, at his request, and it nearly killed him. It stranded the _Discovery_  in another galaxy for a while. We don't know how many jumps it will take us to get the ship back to the Federation -- we'll have to rig astrometrics to sync with the spore drive, start running scans -- this is going to take months, sir. And it might kill an unknown number of people getting us home."

There was a long silence. Everyone stared at Picard, collectively holding their breath. He glared at the surface of the glassy black table as if it were to blame for everything.

"I'll do it, sir," Deanna said faintly.

Argyle and Riker roared to their feet simultaneously, and it took Picard also coming to his feet and shouting them down. The captain leaned on the table, hands flat and his head bowed, until the other two were seated and fuming silently.

"This is not up for a vote," he said at last, very softly. "Leave the room. All of you, except the counselor, the doctor, and the engineer."

The bridge was completely silent for the duration of the meeting. When the four emerged, hours later, Argyle shot up the bridge into the turbolift. Troi followed at a more leisurely pace, and had to wait a moment for a second lift car to arrive before she was able to depart. The captain came to sit in his place, and looked like he'd just been shot in the stomach. Dr. Crusher went to the counselor's usual seat and sat hunched forward looking ill.

"I don't believe it," Riker muttered under his breath.

"If you could, would you? For the sake of a thousand shipmates," Picard returned quietly.

Riker gritted his teeth and glared at the universe of pastels writhing on the main viewer. There was nothing they could do -- even if they made the ship generational, eventually ship's systems would begin to fail without replacement components. No Starfleet vessel was intended to be so far distant for millennia. They were consigning themselves to die, possibly their children  if any were born -- there were several pregnant individuals already aboard.

He knew Deanna. He knew all his friends -- each of them would say the same.

"Yes," he sighed. Hanging his head.

 

* * *

 

 

It took several months to get a prototype set up in main engineering. During that time, Deanna continued to see her clients. She was busier than ever before, dealing with people who were losing hope.

The first suicide happened at sixty-two days. One of the ensigns in archaeology. The second occurred the week before the drive came online. 

"There will be others if we can't get the ship back soon," Deanna said at the senior staff meeting held to discuss when the first trial run would occur. 

"Any success grafting genetic material into anyone else aboard," Picard asked, his voice tight and fairly thrumming with tension. It had become obvious as they worked on the drive that it would be better to have multiple people who could step in, spread the pain and hopefully not kill any single person in the attempt to get home.

"Unfortunately not yet," Crusher said. "I have several teams from sciences working with my people in sickbay on it. You have to understand, extensive genetic manipulation is banned, none of our equipment currently aboard will allow us to do it -- we're having to design it and replicate it."

"We need to test the drive today," Deanna said.

Everyone looked at the table. 

"Stop it," Deanna said at last, indignant. At least they turned to look at her then. "Stop it! Stop feeling despair. This is what I want. Because -- " 

Now they were feeling even worse, even more guilty. She cried for a moment, actually sobbing audibly, then regain control. Now it was her turn to glare at her warped reflection on the shining black surface. 

"I can't live like this," she said at last, her voice wavering uncontrollably. "I can't take it. There's too much hopelessness -- too much depression. I can't sleep at night without sedatives. This has to end, one way or another, I can't -- "

As she broke down, Riker and Crusher, seated on either side of her, each put a hand on her shoulders. 

"Mr. Argyle," Picard said, but couldn't bring himself to finish the order.

"I'll take the order from the Lieutenant-Commander, sir, when she's ready," Argyle said. His own frustration and despair were just as obvious.

 

 

* * *

 

Only the doctor and engineer were in engineering during the first test. Neither one of them said a word about Deanna -- the jump was successful, in that it moved them somewhere. It also gave most of the crew mild headaches. 

No one saw Deanna for a couple of days. Crusher had her in sickbay, and posted security at the door to the ward. 

The second jump came after some modifications to the drive, and the third within twenty-four hours of the second -- Argyle informed them they were learning by leaps and bounds how to make the drive more efficient and less harmful, and the astrometrics team gained "oodles" of information each jump -- a map of the local mycelium network became possible. By local, he meant the surrounding thousand galaxies -- the senior staff sans the counselor met in a holodeck, the better to see the projection of the network and move it about to see more of it. It was incredibly depressing not to be able to find the Milky Way just yet.

After the tenth jump, Argyle came to the bridge personally, and announced he wouldn't do it any more with Deanna in the machine. 

Picard gritted his teeth and assigned Data to the task. 

 

* * *

 

 

The fifteenth jump landed the ship in the middle of a firefight between other vessels. They were jumping into more familiar looking places, with stars instead of abstract light shows and curiously-illuminated nebulae. After a quick assessment it was determined that the ship would not be able to fight its way through and the aliens were not responding to any method of communication attempted including flashing running lights at them -- so the captain reluctantly asked for another jump.

The end result left the bridge in darkness.

"Engineering," Riker bellowed. "Argyle! Data!"

Then the lights came up half strength. "Data to captain. I am attempting to restore power. We should have life support within the hour. Other systems will take longer."

"Data, what happened?" Picard asked, still gripping the arms of his chair.

"I have little sensor data to go on, but I suspect that the EPS conduits throughout the ship overloaded. Engineer Argyle is sending teams throughout the ship." A pause. "Sir. I am sorry to report that Lieutenant-Commander Troi is not well. The doctor is still trying to revive her."

Riker began to swear. "Keep me updated," Picard snapped. "Work fast." It didn't need to be said -- dead in space with no sensors was not the preferred status for any starship. It was very, very dangerous. There were likely more malfunctions aplenty that they weren't aware of yet, without sensors.

Picard sat in the half-light, as panels came to life here and there around the bridge, and finally the lights came up fully. The main viewer came on. Geordi turned from the helm with a happy expression. "Sir, helm is showing we are back in the Milky Way -- she did it."

"Crusher to bridge," came the depressed doctor's low-pitched, sad summons. "Deanna is dead."

Riker actually started to cry silently. He wasn't alone. Picard slumped in his seat, and ignored the moisture in the corners of his eyes. "Helm, plot a course for home. Best possible speed."

Geordi spent a few moments working, and then sat staring at the viewscreen.

"Geordi?" Will asked at last, after too long a silence.

"Going to guess we'll get warp drive back at some point," Geordi said. "But even if we get warp -- it's going to take us eighty years to get home, at warp nine."

Another silence. Unexpectedly, Picard chuckled. "Well, then. What a shitty way to make captain for you, Number One."

Riker hurled a padd, with either terrible or excellent aim, depending on how one looked at it -- the padd hit the wall to the right of the main viewer instead of striking it. "Fuck," he growled.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the _Enterprise_  finally returned, with Captain Data at the conn, some of the crew's children still survived to help him operate the ship.

They had barely escaped assimilation -- extended their journey through the Delta Quadrant by going around instead of through Borg space. They had dealt with the Vidiians, the Kazon, and so many other species, along the way. They ran into the USS _Voyager_  and then merged crews, when the smaller ship was sacrificed in a firefight with the Kazon. The struggle to keep the ship operating and the crew functioning was intense. 

And then Dr. Crusher the younger, Beverly's daughter Valerie, found a way to graft some of Deanna Troi's genetic material, long kept in stasis, into another person. Wesley Crusher, still first officer at eighty-two, put himself in the drive and took his life getting the ship all the way home in one final jump.

Sixty-five years after the untimely incident that sent them into another reality, another universe, the _Enterprise_  finally came home. 

Only Geordi still survived, though he was hardly mobile at ninety-eight. Most of the original crew were either so old they were working part time or retired, or deceased in the line of duty -- trying to obtain dilithium or other substances with which to fuel the ship or recharge the stores for the replicator to function was a risky thing, in another quadrant that had never heard of the Federation. 

Data found himself explaining and re-explaining everything, to admirals he had never met as they had all been junior officers when the ship had vanished from the Federation. He retired himself and went about the last tasks that his fellow senior officers had set him to. First he went to France and returned Captain Picard's ashes to his home village. He took Captain Riker's to Alaska, and set off for Caldos with Valerie to inter her mother with the grandmother who had raised her. Worf had been vaporized in the beam of an energy weapon on a world in the Delta Quadrant, and his foster parents were long dead, so Data had no one to inform on Worf's behalf. Tasha Yar had been lost in a shuttle with two other people on a supply run, and she also had no family that Data could locate. 

He was able at least to return Deanna's remains to Betazed, where she was buried with full honors next to her mother and the rest of her family. 

It was, he reflected, a successful mission after all. The wealth of information the _Enterprise_ had gathered would take years for Starfleet to review. It was simply not the mission they had planned to have....

 

**Author's Note:**

> In watching ST: Discovery, it's easy to see how they are trying to dovetail into existing canon of the ST universe, by making the spore drive horribly impractical and immoral to use - the torture of a living being to use it makes it completely out of the question for those with high standards. As a last resort it might make more sense. Needs of the many vs. some pain for one... etc.
> 
> I almost coded this as a crossover, but it's really not. None of the Discovery characters appear.


End file.
